3 Ways to Get out of your Mind and Back into your Body
Sometimes, our thoughts are louder than our sense of self. The anxieties and stressors of life can build up, expanding inside our minds until they become unavoidable and you feel trapped there. Whether you’re daydreaming or worrying, it’s easy to get lost in the space between reality and imagination when they amplify themselves, building a tension that snares your mind.
Getting stuck in your thoughts, anxieties, or memories is frustrating, and you may feel powerless to take back control of your thoughts and recenter yourself. We’ve got three tips to help you release the whirlpool of your thoughts and get back into your body today.
Move your body
It seems like a broad (and obvious) answer, but moving your body in intentional ways can help you to release the focus on your thoughts and return them to achieving the symmetry of your movements in your body.
For some people, flow is what’s important. Things like yoga that work cyclically are beneficial for engaging a thoughtful repetition in your movement. Yoga has the added benefit of syncing breath to movement as a part of your active process, giving you something static to focus on outside your thoughts.
If the flow of activity is less key for you, you may try running, cycling, methodically walking up and down the stairs around your home, or something more discrete like tapping your thumb against each of your fingertips in turn.
Each of these activities allows you some flexibility in how you engage in them and can be tailored to your lifestyle and daily needs. This ensures you’re never too far from a coping mechanism if you need an unscheduled timeout from the cacophony of your thoughts.
2. Use Grounding exercises
Traditionally a therapy for panic attack management, grounding exercises are a supportive and active way to help yourself recenter on your physical body. The 5-4-3-2-1 method of grounding is the most commonly used and focuses on engaging your five physical senses to force your attention back to what you’re experiencing externally in the moment.
To use this exercise, you’ll simply need to remember the structure:
5 things you can see. Maybe it’s a pen on your desk or the light across the room. There’s no correct answer, and it can be as visually obvious or intentionally narrow as you’d like.
4 things you can touch. For this one, physically reach out and touch them. The table? What are you sitting on? Focus on the tactile sensations your body can have at this moment.
3 sounds you can hear. Is there music playing or the hum of the radiator? There might be traffic outside or the sound of your breathing. It doesn’t have to be loud, but tune into your auditory environment and take note.
2 things you can smell. This one can be harder but is important. Olfactory sensation is closely tied to memory, so maybe if you know this is valuable for you, it would benefit you to have something that smells comforting on hand for future moments of mindful recentering.
1 thing you can taste. What’s the last thing you ate? Maybe it was coffee or the chapstick you wear. It doesn’t matter how clearly present the taste is, just that you can focus on identifying it.
Recentering on the experiences your body is having in this moment can give you the space you need to breathe into your thoughts and change the frame of reference for the power your mind has over you right now.
3. Have sex
This seems a bit jarring, maybe, but sex is a valuable part of the human experience and having an orgasm has a hormonal impact on the way your body processes information. Whether you’re solo or with a partner, spend some time focusing on experiencing your body in a pleasurable way. Instead of fast movement or a countdown of intention, take some freedom in the way you explore sensation and the changes it elicits.
Sexual pleasure, and orgasms more specifically, can increase your circulation and reroute your blood flow from feeding the unproductive thoughts in your mind as it invigorates your body through a more efficient flow of blood and oxygen. The hormones released during orgasm have also been shown to decrease pain and anxiety while having a calming effect that may make sleep more attainable. On a more topical level, the same hormones stimulated by sexual pleasure can help to decrease skin troubles like acne and boost collagen for more youthful skin.
Our minds are powerful tools, but when left to their own devices, their potency can work against us. If you’re looking for a therapist in the Akron area to help you build on your body-centering tools while creating a healthier, more secure relationship with yourself, let’s connect.